2016 Wind Awards at the DWEA Conference, Washington, DC

Updates from them DWEA (Distributed Wind Energy Association) Conference in Washington DC where the 2016 Wind Awards were presented. We would like to congratulate Mia Devine on receiving the Community Wind Innovator Award as well as Trudy Forsyth who was presented with the Distinguished Service in Community Wind 201 Award.

The Distinguished Service in Community Wind Award is given annually to a person who has made an exceptionally significant contribution to the establishment and growth of Community Wind as a uniquely valuable form of clean, renewable energy. The recipient of this award possesses outstanding dedication, excellence or achievement and has worked over many years to further the goals of community wind and distributed renewable energy.

The 2016 Distinguished Service in Community Wind 201 award was presented to Trudy Forsyth. Trudy Forsyth is a leader in the small and distributed wind consulting field who has worked in the wind technology industry since 1994. She was the program leader of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) distributed wind turbine program, which included small and medium wind turbines. Since 1995 she coordinated efforts between the NREL/National Wind Technology Center technical staff and U.S. manufacturers for designing and testing new small wind turbines,accredited testing of commercial small wind turbines, and publishing turbine field performance and test reports. She developed near-term and mid-term industry strategies on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, the small wind industry, and a wide variety of stakeholders, including developing international and national turbine certification and labeling strategies. Trudy co-led the development of the second and third revisions of the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) Small Wind Turbine Design standard (61400-2) and the International Energy Agency Recommended Practice on Consumer Labeling of Small Wind Turbines. Trudy currently serves as board president for the Small Wind Certification Council and the Women of Wind Energy, and she is a board member for the American Solar Energy Society. Some of her unique outreach activities include her inclusion in a national Girl Scouts Cadettes journey handbook, her hosting of a NASA SCI Files wind energy segment, and her National Association of Farm Broadcasters interviews for rural radio.

The Community Wind Innovator Award. This award is presented annually to an individual who has made significant progress over the past one to two years in forging ahead with new policies, new approaches, new business models or new research to further community and distributed wind energy.

While Mia manages multiple clean energy projects for Northwest SEED, including work on the NW Wind Energy Center, she has most recently worked to refine wind energy permitting and zoning by creating a foundational toolkit for distributed wind turbines. Mia has over ten years of experience working in the renewable energy industry conducting technical feasibility studies of utility-scale wind farms, due diligence reviews of wind turbine supply and maintenance contracts, project management of proposals and budgets, and hands-on installation of residential solar and wind power equipment. Mia also co-founded a national group encouraging the participation and advancement of women in the wind energy industry and recently completed volunteer work in Central and South America where she helped to install and maintain solar electric lighting systems in rural communities.